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Dynamic Assessment and Dynamic Testing Sternberg and Grigorenko suggest a subtle yet important distinction between two broad applications of DA. According to these authors, DA procedures can be used to determine “whether and how the participant will change if an opportunity is provided” while others actually intervene in the development of the individual with the goal of producing changes. They suggest the term dynamic testing ''to refer to the former and ''dynamic assessment ''for the latter. While the use of these terms introduces its own set of problems – not the least of which is the confusion it produces since both of these are generally referred to as DA – their point is worth considering. Sternberg and Grigorenko reserve the term ''dynamic assessment ''for procedures that attempt to undo predictions made by NDAs by intervening in learners’ development. These approaches to DA often use the initial assessment session as a springboard for subsequent intervention, which continues the ZPD work begun during the assessment. In some cases, such intervention programs extend over a period of years. Perhaps the most well known of these programs is Instrumental Enrichment, developed by Feuerstein and his colleagues in Israel as part of their approach to DA . Sternberg and Grigorenko contrast such applications of DA with those that are not part of an intervention program. They point out that some DA procedures can be thought of as diagnostic evaluations in which a mediator offers assistance to learners and analyzes their responsiveness in order to make predictions about their learning ability. The learners’ responsiveness to mediation is then reported to teachers, parents, administrators, and other decision-makers. One can imagine the value of such information for certain assessment decisions, including the acceptance of individuals into programs, the placement of learners at an appropriate level of study, the allocation of funds, etc. Here, the dynamic procedure is a one-time occurrence with a very particular purpose in mind. Of course, by suggesting that the examiner in this case does not attempt to change the learners, Sternberg and Grigorenko overlook the fact that mediated interaction can – and does – promote development. Nevertheless, if one follows Vygotsky’s argument that independent performance reveals only those abilities that have already developed, it is clear that DA enables a more fine-grained understanding of learners’ abilities than NDA. The work of Milton Budoff and his colleagues (also discussed in later chapters) applying DA principles to intelligence testing is an excellent example .Although Sternberg and Grigorenko are correct to point out these different applications of DA, dynamic assessment and dynamic testing should not be thought of as separate enterprises. In fact, according to Lidz and Gindis a similar distinction within DA approaches emerged in Russia during the years following Vygotsky’s death. One foregrounded the assessment of learning ability and the other, more intimately connected to Vygotsky’s theory, stressed teaching and learning in the ZPD. Assessment and teaching were, of course, a part of both approaches. From a Vygotskian perspective, it is only possible to understand abilities and the processes of their development by actually ''promoting ''their development. Following his favorite philosopher, Spinoza, Vygotsky often observed that “it is only in movement that a body shows what it is” . Indeed, Vygotsky’s discussion of ''microgenesis dealt specifically with the issue of development occurring very quickly, and so it is not difficult to accept that even a single session in which a mediator and a learner cooperatively construct a ZPD can result in development. For that reason, the term DA will be used throughout this book to refer to single occurrences of dynamic sessions as well as those that are carried out in the context of a unified assessment–instruction program. Interventionist and Interactionist DA Lantolf and Poehner propose the terms interventionist ''and ''interactionist ''to describe the two general kinds of mediation that DA researchers can make available. Although some DA proponents refer to any kind of support offered to learners as “intervention”, the term mediation will be used here, given its central role in SCT. However, mediation can entail a wide array of support, ranging from standardized hints to dialogic interaction. As Lidz and Gindis observe, Vygotsky was well aware of the different approaches educators might use to mediate learners’ development, suggesting that “it would be important to discriminate between those interactions that promote such development and those that do not, assuming that all interactions are not equal”. In his own writings, Vygotsky preferred the term “cooperation” to describe the mediator–learner relationship, clearly implying a dialogic interaction in which both participants share in the responsibility for development. Interactionist DA follows Vygotsky’s preference for cooperative dialoging. In this approach, assistance emerges from the interaction between the mediator and the learner, and is therefore highly sensitive to the learner’s ZPD. ''Interventionist ''DA, on the other hand, remains closer to certain forms of static assessment and their concerns over the psychometric properties of their procedures. ''Interventionist ''DA uses standardized administration procedures and forms of assistance in order to produce easily quantifiable results that can be used to make comparisons between and within groups, and can be contrasted with other measures and used to make predictions about performance on future tests. ''Interventionist ''DA is concerned with quantifying, as an “index of speed of learning” ,the amount of help required for a learner to quickly and efficiently reach a prespecified endpoint. In contrast, ''interactionist ''DA focuses on the development of an individual learner or even a group of learners, regardless of the effort required and without concern forpredetermined endpoints. Lantolf and Poehner have noted that the distinction between these two approaches to DA is reminiscent of Elkonin’s train metaphor for describing different orientations to instruction and learning. According to Elkonin, those interested in learning speed and efficiency are said to focus on how quickly a train moves toward the final station along a set of tracks, while others are less interested in the train’s speed than they are in helping to lay down new tracks leading toward a station that is potentially always relocating. 'Sandwich and Cake Formats of DA' Finally, DA procedures can be structured according to what Sternberg and Grigorenko have described as ''sandwich ''and ''cake ''formats. The sandwich format is much more in line with traditional experimental research designs in which treatment is administered following a pretest . In this approach to DA, a mediation phase is similarly “sandwiched” between pretest and posttest that are administered in a non-dynamic manner. The performance on the posttest can then be compared to the pretest in order to determine how much improvement an individual made as a result of mediation. Sternberg and Grigorenko also point out that these procedures can be administered in either an individual or group setting, and that in individualized procedures the mediation may also be individualized, while in group procedures the mediation tends to be the same for everyone. The ''cake ''format refers to procedures in which mediation is offered during the administration of the assessment, usually whenever problems arise. Sternberg and Grigorenko note that the ''cake ''format is especially effective in individual administrations where mediators can focus their support on helping learners identify and overcome errors following each assessment task or item. In ''interventionist ''approaches to DA, the mediation offered might be in the form of a graded set of standardized hints ranging from implicit to explicit. The mediator then calculates the number and type of hints required by the learner in order to respond appropriately to the particular item. In such a model, variation across learners would necessarily be a function of the number rather than the content of the hints, since these are standardized. In an ''interactionist approaches to DA, any analysis of variation across learners or for the same learner over time would have to include both the quality and amount of assistance. Dynamic Assessment and Resistance to Change DA research in the West has been ongoing for more than 40 years, and a considerable body of research now exists in the general education and psychology literatures. Nevertheless, as Sternberg and Grigorenko observe, DA has not been enthusiastically received by everyone in the scientific community. They suggest three reasons why DA has failed to emerge as a dominant paradigm within mainstreamresearch. The first of these concerns DA methodologies. With some notable exceptions , DA researchers have not made systematic attempts to psychometrically establish the validity and reliability of their procedures. For interactionist ''DA researchers, such as Feuerstein, psychometric concerns are not addressed since they eschew standardization in favor of understanding and promoting development of the individual. ''Interventionist ''researchers continue to validate their work using traditional methods, although a recurring problem is that existing statistical models, developed for the measurement of fixed traits, are less than adequate for depicting the kinds of dynamic, emergent abilities that are of interest in DA .An additional, related issue in DA research has to do with replication studies. Again, this criticism is more of a concern for researchers in interventionist DA; proponents of ''interactionist ''DA follow a case study approach to research and validate their work on the basis of an accumulation of in-depth studies of individuals or groups of individuals. Those working in ''interventionist ''DA, however, follow standardized administration procedures and typically adhere to traditional statistical methods of data analysis and interpretation, and so could certainly carry out replication studies. In this regard, Sternberg and Grigorenko’s point is well taken. The final reason suggested for the relative lack of attention DA work receives is, arguably, the approach’s greatest strength – its novelty. As described earlier, the assessment–instruction dualism is so pervasive that many are turned away from DA because it challenges accepted practice. Testing purists are quick to dismiss DA on the grounds that it is, in fact, teaching and not testing, while researchers interested in instruction may ignore DA because the term assessment connotes a field of research that is removed from their own specialization. In applied linguistics, the last 15 years has seen a rapid growth in the interest in Vygotsky-inspired research into processes of SLA .In the domain of language assessment, interest in Vygotskian theory has been much more modest. A review of the assessment literature shows that little research been done from a Vygotksyan perspective, and that the work that does make reference to Vygotsky has either used SCT as a research tool to understand learners’ behavior during assessments or as a basis for critiquing and reconsidering existing testing practices (. Johnson suggested that aspects of SCT might have important implications for how oral proficiency interviews could be conducted, but she did not offer concrete guidelines or examples of how interview administration procedures would need to be modified. The time is therefore ripe for the introduction of a new way of thinking about assessment and instruction that is grounded in Vygotsky’s theory of mind. 'Budoff’s Learning Potential Measurement Approach' Budoff’s work emerged out of a concern over the validity of scores produced using standardized measures of intelligence. According to Budoff, traditional intelligence assessments may be adequate for understanding the abilities of many children, but for some – especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds – interpretations of assessment outcomes are compromised by the disjoint between the culture of the school and the children’s own culture. In other words, poor performance on a traditional intelligence test may be due to alack of certain kinds of educational opportunities rather than to cognitive impairment. Inspired by Luria’s work with underachieving students in the Soviet Union, Budoff reasoned that the effects of a child’s background on his test performance could be mitigated to a degree if the child were familiarized with the test and taught strategies for solving the kinds of problems it contains. In Budoff’s view, if children improved their test scores as a result of training, this change should be taken as an indication of their ''learning'' potential''. Budoff’s is the earliest DA research outside of the Soviet Union and it also remains the closest to NDA. He used only test instruments whose psychometric properties were well established, such as Kohs Learning Potential Task and the Raven Learning Potential Test, and his interpretations of learners’ abilities were based exclusively on their test scores. In fact, Budoff pioneered the sandwich ''format of DA ,which was taken from the classical research design in experimental psychology: pretest – treatment – posttest. Budoff’s approach to mediation resembles the “treatment” phase in that the experimenter follows a standardized procedure to instruct learners in problem-solving strategies. Thus, Budoff’s approach is like NDA except that it allows learners to be trained and retested.In high-stakes testing, coaching students to improve scores has become commonplace . One might legitimately question whether Budoff’s work can be considered “dynamic.” I would like to suggest that the answer lay in the purpose behind the procedures. In coaching programs, the aim is to help students improve their score on a particular test in order to gain admission to a university or achieve some other objective. Budoff is interested in improving learners’ test performance because he believes the degree of change reveals their potential for future learning. It is true that, unlike other approaches to DA, Budoff does not mention cognitive development as a goal of the procedure. Nevertheless, he shares with other DA proponents a conviction that cognitive abilities are amenable to change if appropriate opportunities are provided. To recall our discussion in Chapter 1 of Sternberg and Grigorenko’s proposed distinction between “dynamic testing” and “dynamic assessment,” Budoff’s Learning Potential Measurement may be considered an example of the former since it is intended to explore potential for development rather than promote development. Budoff’s approach makes an important contribution to DA’s claim that cognitive abilities are dynamic and not stable because participants in his work responded differently to the mediation phase. Budoff was able to group individuals according to the differences in their pretest and posttest scores, demonstrating that they benefited differentially from training. In this way, two learners who performed similarly on their pretests might perform differently on their posttests, or vice versa. According to Budoff, such information was crucial to understanding their potential for future learning. He proposed grouping individuals into one of three categories: ''high scorers are learners whose initial pretest performance is good; ''gainers ''are individuals who show improvement after training; and ''nongainers ''are learners who perform poorly on both the pretest and posttests. Budoff’s Learning Potential Measurement, with its standardized mediation phase and reliance on traditional testing instruments, is best suited for contexts involving large numbers of individuals. One can imagine, for instance, adapting this approach to use in the administration of a language proficiency exam to select candidates from a large pool for acceptance into a university and possible placement in an intensive academic English program. The approach is not intended for classroom applications. One notable feature of Learning Potential Measurement is that there is no follow-up to the posttest; scores are simply reported to school officials. Budoff and his colleagues have yet to outline an intervention program for participants based on test performance, and they have not investigated how learners’ gains might be affected by the kind of instruction offered during the mediation phase. Budoff’s reluctance to alter mediation during administration of a Learning Potential Measurement is due to his commitment to standardizing all aspects of the procedure. He has criticized DA approaches such as Feuerstein’s, arguing that “it is difficult to distinguish the contribution the tester makes to student responses from what the student actually understands and can apply” . Budoff’s perspective is clearly grounded in more traditional approaches to psychological measurement, and so he is concerned with determining how much of a test performance can be attributed to the “environment,” as represented by the tester, and how much is to be attributed to the student. This contrasts sharply with Vygotsky’s understanding of the person–environment relationship, as seen in Elkonin’s observation that for Vygotsky interaction is “not a factor of development, not what acts from outside on what is already there, but a ''source ''of development.” This important point will be returned to in the nextchapter when we consider psychometric criticisms of DA.